


twelve below

by lyricalprose (fairylights)



Series: 2013 Fic Advent Calendar [15]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 2013 Fic Advent Calendar, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 15:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairylights/pseuds/lyricalprose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Mickey,” she asks slowly, hating the way her voice has gone all shaky. “What’s this?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	twelve below

**Author's Note:**

> [rointheta](http://rointheta.tumblr.com) asked “mickey x martha, North Pole mission.”
> 
> Fill #15 for my [2013 fic advent calendar](http://lyricalprose.tumblr.com/tagged/2013-fic-advent-calendar).

Martha thought she knew what cold felt like.  
  
The chill pouring off the ice cliffs of Lillyx Five, or the frozen wind whipping across the lifeless surface of Messaline, pre-terraforming – those sorts of places set a pretty high bar, as far as cold was concerned. But two weeks into this three-week assignment at UNIT’s northernmost monitoring station on the entire globe, Martha has decided that there can’t _possibly_ be another place in the universe quite as cold as this one. Never mind what the thermometer says. Even though she knows for a fact that Messaline and Lillyx and half a dozen other daft places she visited with the Doctor were an awful lot colder than the inside of this state-of-the-art, temperature-controlled facility, she’s one hundred percent convinced that the North Pole is hell on earth – frozen over, of course.  
  
The _one_ positive thing about this entire mission is that Mickey is her partner.

Martha hasn’t the foggiest idea whose idea it was to send the two of them on this mission together, but she’d sort of like to, so that she can send them a Christmas card or a fruit basket. She and Mickey aren’t breaking any rules by seeing each other – Mickey’s not a part of UNIT, not technically, and there are no regulations regarding personal relationships with consultants – but there are still raised eyebrows and disapproving whispers, every now and again, though the rate at which the two of them close investigation files and avert international incidents does tend to quiet most naysayers. Shipping the two of them off on a two-person, close-quarters mission to the North Pole is either the nicest thing her employer has ever done for her, or the cruelest.  
  
She’s rummaging around in the bottom drawer of their equipment locker, the one used for extra environmental suits and spare snow gear, for another pair of socks – she’s already wearing two, inside her insulated boots, and her toes _still_ feel numb – when she finds it. Her fingers shift a puffy orange jacket out of the way and curl around something small and square that feels a bit like velvet, and when she pulls it out to look at it her toes aren’t the only thing that feel numb anymore.  
  
“Mickey,” she asks slowly, hating the way her voice has gone all shaky. “What’s this?”  
  
Mickey, from where he’s sitting at the table in the station common room, looks up from his computer. Upon seeing that she’s holding a small, square black box, he goes very still. “Shit,” he blurts out, sounding panicked – then promptly claps a hand over his mouth, as if to stop any more words from coming out. “You weren’t – you weren’t supposed to see that.”  
  
“Um, it’s a bit late for that,” Martha says, and Mickey grimaces as if he’s in pain. “Mickey, is this – do you –”  
  
They’ve talked about this, in the same abstract way they’ve talked about quitting UNIT and running off to do freelance work somewhere sunny and tropical – which is to say, in hazy _someday_ terms, usually after a good shag, when they’re sleepy and happy and not thinking too hard about anything in particular. But they’ve never made _plans_ , never even _planned_ to make plans, because Mickey’s never done that sort of thing and Martha’s done it far too often.  
  
“Bollocks, this is the worst,” he mutters, then puts the computer down and comes towards her. She expects – well, she’s not sure what she expects, really. For him to take the box from her hand, maybe, or to get down on one knee. Maybe both.  
  
Instead, he takes her hands in his, guiding the empty one over the top of box, so that it sits clasped between four joined hands. “This was supposed to be romantic,” he says, sheepish and apologetic. “Dinner, candles, music an’ champagne ‘n all that. Had it all planned out, for when we got back home. Knew I shouldn’t have brought this.” He squeezes his hands around hers, and the velvet of the box rubs against the skin of her palms. “But I couldn’t bring myself to leave it at the flat, and then, well, I had to hide it somewhere.”  
  
“I know this whole thing didn’t work out for you so well, last time,” he mumbles, and he looks so _nervous_ , so unlike the Mickey she knows. This she imagines, is more the Mickey that Jack has told her stories about, the Mickey of days gone by – young and insecure and ignorant, not yet at home in his own skin. It makes her want to wrap her arms around his neck and hug him, but he’s still got her hands clasped in his, closed firmly around the small square box.  
  
“We haven’t–” He hesitates, for a moment, before gripping her hands a little tighter and plunging on ahead. “We haven’t talked about the future, not a lot. An’ it’s not like we’ve got the safest jobs, so I get it. Uncertain times ‘n all that. But lately–”  
  
Mickey looks her straight in the eyes, then, and the look on his face ties her breath up in knots, a hopeless tangle of anticipation in her throat and chest. “Lately I’ve been thinking about the future. And I’ve been thinkin’ that I don’t much care if it’s in London or France or Paraguay or on the fifth moon of wherever, so long as you’re there. If you don’t wanna – you know, with the dress and the flowers and your mum bein’ your mum – that’s fine, yeah, but–”  
  
Martha doesn’t let him finish. “Yes,” she says, all the breath she’s been holding finally rushing out of her in one elated word. “ _Yes._ ”


End file.
